The sanctity of marriage as the bedrock of the Canadian family is steadily eroding as the country’s social fabric evolves, new census data released Wednesday reveals. Instead, although married couples are still the norm — about two thirds of families — their numbers are lagging and only increased by 3.1 per cent between[...]

Seven years after Canada legalized same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian couples are running to the altar. Between 2006 and 2011, the number of same-sex married couples nearly tripled, according to new census data released Wednesday. While the number of opposite-sex couples who took the leap into matrimony grew by only three per cent since the[...]

When Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, it became the third country in the world to do so, following the Netherlands and Belgium. In 2011, there were 64,575 same-sex couples in Canada, up 42 per cent from 2006. In 2011, 21,015 same-sex couples were married, compared with 7,500 in 2006. Among both married and common-law[...]

OTTAWA – As recently as 2006, Canadian liberals worried that a social-conservative tide led by Stephen Harper would sweep the country, taking us back to the era of restricted abortion, capital punishment, official discrimination against gays and father-knows-best. But the reactionary tide, to the chagrin of some of the Conservative Party of Canada’s staunchest backers[...]

OTTAWA — Slide over Homer and Marge Simpson, the Brady Bunch-style family is taking hold in Canadian households. With a step and a skip, the Canadian family as we know it is taking another leap into new territory, according to new 2011 census data released Wednesday by Statistics Canada. The portrait of the Canadian family[...]

OTTAWA — The number of single fathers in Canada grew at more than two-and-a-half times the rate of single mothers, according to data from the 2011 census. The latest figures from Statistics Canada continued a decade-long shift in the makeup of lone-parent families, with single fathers now numbering more than 305,000 nationwide, up from the[...]

• Alberta: Fastest growth of families of any province between 2006 and 2011. • Quebec: More common-law couples than any other province, with almost 31.5 per cent of all families. • Quebec: Most stepfamilies in Canada, at 16 per cent of all couples with children. • Ontario: Lowest proportion of stepfamilies. • Ontario: Highest percentage[...]

… • On May 10, 2011, there were 9,389,700 census families in Canada, an increase of 5.5 per cent. • Married couples are the main family type, comprising 67 per cent of all census families. • The number of married couples increased by 3.1 per cent since 2006, compared to a 13.9 per cent increase[...]